


Finally

by BlackCats



Category: Persona 3, Persona Series
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Post-Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 02:06:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3101135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackCats/pseuds/BlackCats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This should have been years ago, but she'd take what she could get.<br/>(Yukari, Minato, and <i>at last</i>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finally

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The Protagonist](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=The+Protagonist).



The shoot for today lets out early, as a personal emergency on the director’s part sends all the actors trooping out into the wintery cold. She’s invited for drinks at the usual spot but Yukari turns them down—she’s not in the mood for alcohol, and she satisfies herself with a coffee bought from a corner shop as she braves the frigid wind en-route to the train station.

She’s walked this path a hundred times before. The same old streets, the same old signs, the same old advertisements in the windows of shops and salons and movie theaters. Yukari sighs and lifts her eyes to the sky, smiling a bit as she makes her way to an available spot by the tracks and waits for the train to appear.

Despite the cold, it's a beautiful day.

…Someone’s got their headphones on entirely too loud. She ignores it at first, tapping placidly at her cellphone as she answers a text from Aigis a thousand miles away, but when the din continues right behind her shoulder, she’s inclined to comment on it.

“Hey,” she starts in a mild tone. “Would you mind turning that down just a little—“

The rest of the sentence dies in her throat.

Dies. Dead. _Gone_. Just like…

Just like _he_ was supposed to be.

Oh, she knows that look. Knows it well. It’s his not-so-stoic face, the one with calm eyes and arched brows and the cutest little smirk playing on the edges of his lips. It’s a dangerous look, a teasing look, and it’s precisely the same as it was years ago.

He’s not changed at all, and when the train finally rolls in, Yukari doesn’t even turn around.

“Sorry,” he says, _drawls_ , clearly waiting for a reaction. He slides the volume down and regards her with his other hand stuffed within a pocket. “How’s that?”

The world’s been reduced to nothing. It’s silent, flowing in slow motion, and she’s wrapped in warm nostalgia for the boy she fell for in high school and never quite recovered from. He’s still oozing confidence, charm, that perpetual tranquility broken only by fleeting smiles…and she’s…

She’s several years his senior, and Yukari can barely breathe.

“This…This can’t be happening…”

“Yukari…?”

“No. You don’t understand. This really _can’t_ be happening!”

She flinches back when he shifts forward a step and Minato freezes, easing back into place. The station’s emptying out and she’s going to miss her ride, but Yukari couldn’t care less about that now. She brings her shaking hand up and clutches her chest, trying in vain to fight back the tears in her eyes.

“You’re back…you’re _finally back_ …”

“Sorry for taking so long,” he says softly—no trace of humor now, just sincerity.

“St-Stupid…What are you apologizing for…? Leaving you like that, on that door…A-And on the roof, in the spring, we talked about…seeing my mom…” There’s too much to say. Her thoughts are jumbled, showing her fragments of memories and hopeful futures, things that don’t make any sense anymore, that _can’t_ make sense due to the lost time between them. 

It was hard. So,  _so_ hard.

Minato is silent, but his eyes speak volumes. _I’m sorry. I’m sorry._

“Don’t apologize,” she mutters with a trace of her old fire, and he smiles at that. Yukari’s eyes dart here, there, _everywhere_ , avoiding the red flash of his armband in the process. “Y-You…made all these promises, you know? And then you…”

“I died,” he says, easily.

“Yeah.” Her throat seizes for a moment. “That.”

There’s silence. The station’s quieted down and the train’s departed. Yukari deposits her coffee upon the ground and slowly straightens again, staring at Minato as if she’s expecting him to disappear at any moment. (She is.)

“A-A girl can’t help but wonder if she’s dreaming, but…Someone coming back from the dead…weirder things _have_ happened, right?” Her voice is shaking but the smile on her face is genuine, strung tight with wryness.

“Between invisible midnight hours and personifications of death? Why not?” He shrugs, lazy, relaxed, and in that moment Yukari finally breaks down sobbing like she hasn’t in ages.

He holds her. He doesn’t seem to care about anything that’s changed, but at that moment she’s back on a beach at dusk; wrapped in his arms for the first time and feeling like her world’s come apart at the seams.

She supposes this is one life-changing event she’s absolutely okay with.

When she finally regains her composure—and her coffee—Minato stares at her until she starts to feel heat creeping up her face. She smoothed her hair back, self-conscious.

“…What? What is it?”

He’s looking at her work ID, eyebrows arched, wearing that beloved smirk once more. “So. Phoenix Featherman Ranger Pink, huh?”

Yukari burns red up to the tips of her ears, and he chuckles.

"Look. I can explain, all right? There's actually a _reason_ I'm doing something like this."

"I didn't say it was a bad thing. Why don't you tell me about it?" He casts his eyes toward the station's clock. "We've got plenty of time until the next train."

Yukari sighs, long and slow, closing her eyes for a few moments before allowing a smile to form.

"...All right. I think I will. Come on, Minato-kun, I know a place that sells great coffee."

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a friend! Short, drabbley, intentionally-vague!


End file.
